Deep Fear

by Deep Fear (retail) (epub)

  It was those links that would eventually trip him up.

  Chapter 28

  A brief run of the name Brian Wick on the PNC didn’t take long to throw out a result. Brian ‘Bick’ Wick had a decent criminal history, but more importantly, a known address. Kelly tasked DC Emma Hide and DC Shawcross to pay him a visit. Rob drove through Penrith towards the Scaws Estate and DC Hide sat in the passenger seat. She was a very different companion to Kelly, Rob noticed. The young DC was quiet and measured, and rarely spoke. She was petite, like Mia, but like a Jack Russell: not to be messed with.

  ‘So what do we have on him so far?’ Rob broke the silence.

  Emma glanced at her notes. ‘He’s a local thug, that’s for sure. Hangs around in the same gang he’s hung with since dropping out of school. Twenty-seven, unemployed, various drug-related cautions and arrests. A bit of a local legend. Tough guy. He definitely attracts the dross,’ she said.

  ‘What are the links to Brandy Carter?’ Rob wanted to keep the conversation going, he didn’t like silences, and he was used to DI Porter pushing him on journeys like this. She’d quiz him to try and catch him out, trying to coax him into thinking outside of his comfortable box. Like last night: she’d got him to carry her as far as he could, and he’d stopped, panting and out of breath, after ten yards.

  ‘He looks a beast in his mug shot.’

  It was true. Brian Wick looked like a con. A professional. He snarled at the camera, thick-necked and gnarly, the stuff of nightmares.

  ‘She must have been desperate to dig with him,’ Rob said. Emma looked out of the window.

  ‘Desperate enough to trust him, at least. He obviously did Brandy a favour, letting her crash in his flat; I wonder what she did in return. Mother seems a waste of space, and she was obviously never home, if it can be called home. I feel sorry for her. What a life,’ she said. Emma’s compassion touched Rob and he thought about Brandy as a person and how her life had been snuffed out and not many people – so far – seemed to care.

  The news of the second body was on the radio, and Rob shook his head. ‘How do they get it so quickly?’ he asked.

  ‘Social media, it can’t be controlled. A statement was given from Clifton Hall, but the press will be hounding anyone who knew her for the foreseeable future.’

  Their advantage was that the press didn’t know that Brandy had stayed with Brian Wick, and that made their day infinitely easier. For now, they were press-free. It gave them a small window, until they inevitably found out.

  ‘So have you turned up anything with the notes?’

  Rob referred to the poetry left on the two victims. For his part, he was glad that another officer had volunteered for the task. His strong point was maths and physical geography. He could never understand the attraction to the humanities and arts at college. The English Literature students who swanned about debating dead men’s words and feelings freaked him out. He was much more comfortable with straight answers and stuff that had no variables: like emotion.

  Emma picked up on his mystification and smiled. She’d volunteered because she loved literature. Plain and simple. But this was a double win: not only was it poetry, but Lakes poetry that she hadn’t read since university. The verse, she was convinced, was at the centre of this case, and she’d stayed up way into the night to perfect her brief for DI Porter.

  ‘Do you read poetry, Rob?’ Of equal rank, they were comfortable using their first names. Emma was a little senior to him, having been a DC for two years, and so Rob was still well and truly the rookie.

  ‘Erm, not really. My girlfriend likes books, but I’ve never got into them really. I watch films, but reading makes me think I should be getting out and doing something.’

  ‘So, you see it as a waste of time?’

  ‘Kind of.’ Rob smiled. They understood one another.

  ‘Well, I’ll tell you what I think. The boss has already said that they’re calling cards, and messages. Agreed?’

  ‘Yup.’ Rob listened intently, as well as navigating the traffic, which was light through town. They were almost on the outskirts of Penrith and neared the Scaws Estate.

  ‘They’re both pretty depressing. Even I’ll admit that. But not at first glance. You’ve got to really be quite keen to dig deep into both of them to analyse their meaning.’ She shifted in her seat, animated now. Rob concentrated and tried to follow her meaning.

  ‘See, they’re both about how life always comes to an end, or is ruined. Moira’s poem – the one about the flower – well, that’s quite obvious, without going in to too much detail. It’s about all things in nature being fleeting and short-lived, no matter how beautiful they are. The message is that we should enjoy the things that delight us because soon enough, they’ll be gone.’ She looked at Rob but she couldn’t read his face. He looked as though he was simply concentrating on his driving, until he asked, ‘So what do you think it means?’

  ‘Well, I think it means that Moira thought too much of herself and deserved to be taught a lesson, after all, the boss said it was about punishment.’

  ‘Christ, he’s sick as fuck.’

  ‘Well, yes, there is that. Anyway, the second one – Brandy’s – that’s slightly different in that it’s about how screwed up mankind is.’

  ‘Screwed up?’

  ‘Yes, how we’ve been given all these amazing things in nature, but we’ve messed it all up.’

  ‘How have we done that?’

  ‘Well, if you look at nature: the birds, the trees, the sea, for example, everything works in harmony. But once you put us into the equation, things start to go wrong and we’ve screwed up royally.’

  ‘What the hell has that got to do with a drug addict-cum-prostitute on the Scaws Estate?’

  ‘Exactly that. Everything we touch, we ruin. Look, shit isn’t in harmony when we humans get involved.’

  ‘God, that’s deep. I mean, this guy is what? A professor or something? Maybe a writer? A teacher?’

  ‘I don’t think it’s that specific. They could have become obsessed with poetry over the years and it’s just their way of expressing their disgust.’

  ‘Disgust?’

  ‘Yes. Disgust. I think that’s really important. The killer was disgusted by Moira and Brandy’s behaviour in life.’

  The rest of the journey took place in silence.

  They drove into the Scaws Estate and parked on the street. The conversation in the car was forgotten and they prepared to find out if Brian Wick was home. Rob knocked on the door, but there was no answer. They both peered through a window, which had dirty net curtains hung up. They squinted. From the corner of her eye, Emma saw a shadow of movement and Rob saw it too. It was on the other side of the flat; the sun was shining in and three figures could be spotted in the brightness: they were framed like silhouettes. They needed to know if Brian Wick was one of the figures, and if he had something to hide.

  Rob rapped on the door again, loudly. Again, nothing. He kept banging.

  Finally, after about five minutes of hammering and peering through the window at the figures, the door was opened. A man stood in the hallway, but it wasn’t Brian Wick: they knew from the photograph taken from his record.

  ‘Bick’s not here.’

  Rob and Emma heard the sound of a window being opened or closed and they barged past the man, running through the flat. The kitchen backed onto a fire escape and as they peered down it, it wobbled and banged under stress from the speed of the escapee. They couldn’t see the other two.

  ‘Shit!’ said Rob. He walked over to the window and peered out, the scene was one of concrete and garages and yards: he could have gone anywhere. ‘Let’s go.’ Emma wore flat shoes, and she was up for a chase. As they went back through the flat, they saw that the other guy had legged it too.

  ‘Come on.’ They ran down a stairwell, that they thought might lead to the back of Wick’s flat, and split up. Ten minutes later, they came together at the flat entrance, out of breath and admitting defeat.r />
  ‘Let’s have a look round.’ They didn’t have a search warrant, but the property was abandoned and left open and technically could be a crime scene, so they had justifiable cause.

  The place was a shithole. They began looking in drawers, behind cushions, and in wardrobes, for any hint of Brandy Carter. The place reeked of idleness and contraband.

  In the bedroom, the double bed lay unmade. The waste bin contained used condoms and tissues. The sheets were stained. In the wardrobe, in a corner, rolled up and seemingly discarded, there was a holdall, and inside it were enough items to get a female through a weekend, or perhaps longer. There was a toilet bag, some perfume, some jewellery, and some clothes. Emma looked at the size, and she reckoned they’d fit Brandy. Satisfied with what they’d found, they locked the flat with a key they found on the kitchen counter, and left.

  ‘Let’s get back and get a drawing done of the guy who answered the door, and let’s see if Brian Wick owns a car.’

  ‘Did he strike you as the type of sensitive guy you’re looking for, into his poetry?’ Rob asked, as they walked back to the car.

  Chapter 29

  Timothy Cole parked his Aston Martin DB9 in the private garage underneath the house, which overlooked Ullswater from her northern shores. He was one of the leading orthopaedic surgeons in the country, and he could demand thousands for private consultations, so the grand property nicely reflected how far he’d come in the world.

  It hadn’t always been like that.

  His wife enjoyed the trappings of his success, and so did their four children. They had an indoor pool, a steam room, whirlpool and bar outside, along with a games room big enough for two pool tables, and a cinema.

  The evening was much the same as all the others, for as far back as Tim could remember: the children tucked away with their various gadgetry – be it in the games room or their own vast bedrooms – and his wife halfway down her first or second bottle of wine. She was bored by how easy everything had become. But not today.

  She’d had fight in her once.

  And he’d enjoyed making love to her. But now it was all different. He no longer knew her; nor she him. He had no idea if she had lovers. He thought he might quite promote the idea to keep her happy. Anything to keep Karen happy, he thought.

  He walked towards the front door and took out his key. He wondered if she would be sober enough to talk to, or if he’d have to wait until the morning to be admonished and grilled about the two dead women, and why the police had violated their private domain. But then, if she took it badly, how would it affect the children? Perhaps he could call the bluff of the police, after all they had nothing on him. If they did, they wouldn’t have let him walk free. And now another body had been found, surely they were looking for someone else. But that’s what terrified him.

  He was fucked.

  He caught sight of himself in the huge gilded mirror that hung over a table in the grand entrance hall. He looked haggard. And so he should. He threw his keys in the glass bowl and they clattered. He dropped his briefcase and cast his jacket on to a chair unlovingly.

  The house was quiet. The children were so used to their solitary existence that they never questioned it. They came in from school, dropped their bags in the kitchen, kissed their mother over her glass of wine, and slunk to their rooms to do what they do.

  He couldn’t face his wife, and so he took the stairs and visited the children in their various quadrants. They smiled innocently at the welcome intrusion, innocent to the afternoon’s invasion. He sat on their beds, asking questions about their day, and tickled the youngest. He wondered why they didn’t play together – they had an instant playgroup – but they preferred to hide away, each in his or her own space.

  They’d be called down for supper at some point, and watch their iPads at the table with headphones on, while Karen topped up her glass. Six planets orbiting the same moon, but none paying any attention to the others.

  If Timothy Cole could give everything away, in trade for being left alone by the police, he would. He’d do it in the flash of an eye, because, for the first time in his life, he wasn’t in control. He wasn’t in charge, he wasn’t calling the shots, and he wasn’t the boss.

  Nothing meant anything at all in the face of what they all had to come. He’d be struck off, never able to work again. Karen and the children would be homeless. Her rows and rows of Prada, Alexander McQueen, Valentino, Versace, Armani and Dolce & Gabbana meant nothing. The Louis Vuitton luggage she insisted upon was a trinket in the face of the Crown Prosecution Service, when it believed it had a case. And even if they didn’t have a case, they’d make one, and no-one would believe the evil consultant who broke the patient-physician code of ethics. He’d be the next Harold Shipman.

  He went to his study and poured himself a large whisky. They called it the study, but he never worked in there. He never worked at home. But, occasionally, he would pretend to so he could enjoy the view. That, and the peace and quiet.

  He kept the lights off.

  The moon lit the lake. It was almost full, and it shone brighter than anything man-made. The black oily mass beneath beckoned him. He wondered if he had the courage to make it all go away. But that would leave his children to pick up the pieces because his wife wouldn’t be capable of doing so.

  If only he’d have helped Moira that night, instead of hurting her.

  He looked at his vast bookcases and wondered simply if someone would write a book about him one day, and if people would read it. He imagined the middle of the book full of glossy photos of the victims, and some of his family, with caveats about how their lives fell apart because they hadn’t known their father’s dark secret.

  The face of Brandy Carter came to him: she was all over the news. She was a pathetic excuse for a human being, addled and ravaged by drugs and promiscuity, a scourge on the NHS. Of course he remembered her; she had offered him sex in exchange for morphine. It wasn’t unheard of; it happened. Morphine, and its various guises came at a handsome price.

  He drained his whisky, put down the glass and looked at his hands. The hands that give life also take it away, he thought. His eyes rested on a photo of his children on his desk. He picked it up and stared at it. Their lives were about to be torn apart. Maybe he should take them all with him. He understood, now, why fathers did it. The pain of leaving them behind to suffer was too much.

  A thud from upstairs slammed him out of his fantasy, and he rushed from the room. The kitchen was upstairs, along with the lounge, because that’s where the best views were. He took the stairs, two at a time, and entered the open plan kitchen-dining area. The lights were dimmed over the table, and the place was totally quiet.

  Then he saw her.

  She began to laugh.

  ‘Tim! Oh my God, I fell. Bloody hell, help me up. I’ve only had one glass,’ Karen insisted. He went to her and helped her up. Her wine glass was under the table, but intact. He automatically went to the fridge to fill it up.

  She was still beautiful.

  He went to her and held her.

  She pulled back at first, so un-used to tenderness. But then she softened, and allowed herself to fall into his arms, and just be held.

  ‘Tim, are you alright?’ she asked. He didn’t answer. He held her tighter.

  ‘Tim? Tim, that’s too tight,’ she said.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said.

  ‘What for? Tim? You’re not making sense. Ouch, that hurts,’ she said.

  He started to cry, and his shoulders shook. He squeezed tighter, and Karen tried to get free. She hadn’t felt him so close for what felt like years – apart from when he had sex with her when she was asleep, and she woke up at the end – and the proximity was both exciting and repulsive.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said again. He was sobbing now. Karen struggled to breathe.

  ‘Tim…’ she said. ‘Tim, I…can’t…breathe…’

  ‘I know, it’s ok. It won’t be long now, Karen. You remind me of my mothe
r.’

  Chapter 30

  Colin Tate answered the door and didn’t look surprised to see the badge of a police detective. He had a bright, polite face, and it caught Kelly off guard; anyone who evades being questioned by the police usually turns out to be aggressive and uncooperative, when they were eventually tracked down.

  Colin Tate was anything but. The fact that neither James, nor Emily Tate, had told Kelly about their children’s adoptions, niggled her. The man before her was thirty-eight years old, and he’d spent his first sixteen years either in care homes or on the street. It was a fact known commonly in psycho circles that killers with an MO including sex and torture usually had a fucked up childhood, and Colin Tate certainly ticked that box.

  ‘Please come in,’ he said, as he opened the door wider.

  She’d driven to the Scaws Estate to give the address a try for herself, seeing as the door hadn’t been answered in the last four days. He was only a POI at the moment, but the fact that he’d been evasive was flagging warnings in Kelly’s head. She’d spent the whole weekend in the office, crunching leads and dismissing each one, and it had left her feeling depressed. Laboratories generally closed down at the weekend and people had to go home to sleep. Today marked their second week on the case, and Cane was getting antsy.

  She was on her way to Eden House and took the diversion on a whim. She looked around her at the playgrounds that were vandalised and covered in graffiti, the kids – who should be at school by now – hanging about in gangs, the corridors and alleyways smelling of piss, and the domestic arguments wafting on the air with trans-fat takeaways and cigarette smoke. The wealth of James Tate hadn’t permeated very far towards his son, and Kelly wondered how Colin ended up here. Motive indeed. And just round the corner from Brian Wick.